U.S.A where the MLB and base ball were created-No.7

Masakazu Kimura

     Since I decided my topic for blog as “MLB”, I just introduced about MLB and some famous teams in MLB. However, I want to introduce my favorite Japanese player who challenged to MLB and succeed. The person who I want to introduce is Hideki Matsui (松井秀樹).

    

     He is very famous baseball player in Japan and all Japanese has to know who he is. Some foreign people who are curious to MLB or Japanese baseball league know about him. He is Japanese baseball player who used to play in Tokyo Giants (東京ジャイアンツ) and moved to New York Yankees which is the most famous team in MLB. Because he was Japanese power batter and hit a lot of HR, he was called “Gozila コジラ” from MLB fans.

     He was born in 1974 and started playing baseball when he was 6 years old. By having big and strong physique, he was put in over 3^rd grade team when he was 1^st grade. Matsui is saying “I obtain power and became strong batter by practicing hard and eating meat every day ”. Other than baseball, he played Sumou(相撲), Zyudo(柔道), and Piano as well. When he played baseball in Koushien(甲子園), he hit huge HR which the ball flew high and hit the back screen of Koushien stadium. The manager of Giants was watching his play and decided to offer to Tokyo Giants. When he just became professional baseball player, he could not remain good score, so he practiced as hard as he can, more than anyone else. Thus, his play became better and better and finally in 2000 when he was 26 years old, he received brilliant awards like “home run king”, “top RBI (Run Batted In) hitter”, “top OBP (On Base percentage) leader”, “Season MVP”, “Japan series MVP”, and “Golden Glove Award”. His score was 42 HR, 108 RBI. He was satisfied with his score in Japan, so he decided to challenge to MLB in 2003, when he was 29 years old. He was lucky that he could transfer to NYY and he became the first Japanese man entered to NYY. His score was not excellent at first, but by overcoming his weak point with his team mate, he became much stronger batter. He remained his achievement in NYY and in 2009, he hit 3 HR and marked 8 points in World Series, so he became the MVP of World Series.

    

     However, his condition went worse and he moved to Los Angeles Angels (ALL) in 2010. He was 36 years old at that time. He remained good score, but because he could satisfied with his score, he decided to move to another team Oakland Athletics.

     

     In 2012 December 28, he opened a press interview in hotel located in NYC and declared to finish his baseball life. He was 38 years old. Matsui said “I played as hard as I can and tried my best for 10 years. My goal was always to show my real power to everyone including my fans. However, I cannot remain good score anymore and I don’t feel I can achieve my goal anymore. I want to go back to Japan and continue playing baseball, but I want to finish my baseball life in U.S.A. Thank you for supporting me until now, especially my fans and family and my former teacher 長嶋茂雄”. He was crying when he declared retirement and all his fans cried also when they heard this new. I also felt sadness. Matsui, because you put hard efforts to baseball, we got energy from you. Thank you very much and nice job! お疲れ様.

    

U.S.A where the MLB and base ball were created-No.6

Masakazu Kimura

 

              Have you ever heard the place name St. Louis ? I think only few of you guys heard this name. St. Louis is the city in Missouri State, U.S. and although the place is not that famous, this city has baseball team in MLB. The name of this team is St. Louis Cardinals.

 

 

 

 



            This team is a member of the Central Division in the National League of MLB. This team changed its name several times before. At first, the name of this team was “St. Louis Brown Stockings” in 1882. When you hear the name of this team, you might laugh but at that time, there were several teams that has “stocking” in their team name like for example, Boston Red Sox used to be Red Stockings. In 1892, this team joined MLB and changed its name to “Perfectors” but in 1990, this team changed its name again to “Cardinals”. Cardinals won 11 World Series which is the championship of MLB and also this team produced a lot of superstars like Stan Musial, Bob Gibson etc. This team is well known to MLB fans and I should had known this team well but actually, I didn’t really know about this team and I learned a lot when I searched this team. Then why did I choose this team? When I first heard “Cardinals”, I imagined one team in NFL (National Football League). There is one football team which has same name as St. Louis Cardinals in Arizona State. That is Arizona Cardinals.

 

The symbols of both teams are bird which has “Cardinal” as a name and both look similar. However, team Cardinals of MLB is located in St. Louis and Cardinals of NFL is located in Arizona. It was interested for me that both teams have same name and symbol, but locating in different places.

              Let’s move on to area study of St. Louis.

 

St. Louis is an independent city on the eastern border of State Missouri. This city is the second biggest city in Missouri State. The population of this city expanded after American Civil War and the city itself became the fourth largest city in U.S. in the late 19^th century. However, city’s population peaked in 1950 and it began to decline that continue in the 21th century. The economy of St. Louis relies on service, manufacturing, trade, transportation of goods, and tourism. Several popular corporations like Express Scripts, Enterprise Rent-A-Car, and Graybar electric were born in this city St. Louis. In addition, St. Louis has three professional sports teams; St. Louis Cardinals (MLB), St. Louis Blues (NHL) and St. Louis Rams (NFL). U.S. has huge land and there are many places which are not that popular to foreign people. When people hear that place, they might consider those places have no popular thing, but actually most of city in each state has something important thing. I didn’t know about St. Louis well, but because I had opportunity to open up the web site of St. Louis, I discovered new facts. Thus, what I wanted to say is don’t think it is not important place by just hearing new places. If you search carefully, you will find some important thing of that place.



 

 



U.S.A where the MLB and base ball were created-No.5

Masakazu Kimura

 

          Have you ever seen this logo before? Also, do you know this team and which state of America own this team? I will not make you guys say “I don’t know anything about this team”. The Boston Red Sox is professional baseball team based in Boston, Massachusetts and a member of MLB’s American league, East division. Because a lot of Japanese baseball player like Matsuzakaand Tazawa were transferred to this team, Boston Red Sox is one of the most popular team in Japan. Before this team was created, there were baseball teams called “Red stockings” in Boston, but around 1908, because the name sounded weird and weak, one man “John Taylor” changed the name to “Red Sox” and became the owner of this team. Red Sox decided their rival team as New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox was doing pretty good job from 5 years ago, but every time, old good players retired and quiet their baseball player life, this team got weaker and weaker and now, it is hard to say Boston Red Sox is the rival team of NYY. From NYY fan’s perspective, Red Sox is not real rival team anymore. In addition, Red Sox’s team color is red, navy and white so they have pretty cool uniforms and team logo and I personally like it.



If I start to talk about baseball team, I will keep talking about this team, so let me introduce about Boston.



 



 

 

          As everyone knows, Boston is the capital of state “Massachusetts” and it is the largest city in this state. Back in 1630, some British people who were looking for new land arrived to western coast of U.S. and made one place which is now Boston as their outlets. At that time, they created the port in Boston and traded with home country Britain. Thus, although America became independent of Britain, Massachusetts especially Boston is still one of the most important city in America for trading. In Boston, there is world famous University “Harvard” and this university is the 1^st university which is built in U.S. Not Harvard is the university in Boston. A lot of famous universities are in Boston and state of Massachusetts. Medical service, investigation, electronics, engineering, financing and technology especially biotechnology is supporting the economy of Boston. Because of the city “Boston” is very famous, I have nothing to tell about, but one thing I surprised that Kyoto is the twin’s city of Boston. More information will be discovered if you also search about Kyoto city.

 

 

References

 

The main site of Boston Red Sox

The government site of Boston, Masachusetts

 

U.S.A where the MLB and base ball were created-No.4

Masakazu Kimura

 

 

 

 

 

 

              Some people, who have curiosity to Major League baseball, know what happened in July 24^th 2012. Ichiro, one of the best player in MLB and is the Hero of not only Seattle Mariners’ fan but also Japanese citizens, moved from Seattle Mariners to New York Yankees. This movement made MLB fans shocked and simultaneously, Japanese people were shocked that he was kicked out from Mariners and taken by Yankees. For people who know Ichiro, they had a concept that is Ichiro = the best Japanese baseball player who succeed in MLB = # 51 in Seattle Mariners, but this concept were banished. As a matter of course. Ichiro is doing well in Yankees and still he is one of the best players. For the first points, Seattle Mariners kicked Ichiro out because Mariners wanted to be refreshed the players, so they thought keeping Ichiro won’t make team fresh. However, Mariners’ position declined and became weaker and that is because they lost the power of Ichiro. Wish this team will gain new powerful player. For basic information, Seattle Mariners is the team of American League in MLB and located in Western Division.

              In the 1^st paragraph, I just introduced big event happened in current days and explained why Mariners decided to leave Ichiro from their team. Then, what is Seattle Mariners and how is it related to area study? To answer this question, I would like to explain about Seattle and its team.

 

 

 

Seattle is the biggest city in state Washington which is located in upper left side of U.S. The city Seattle is world famous for trading and a lot of people from foreign countries are living in this city.  In addition, because Seattle is famous for trading, ships of navy are also moving around the Seattle’s bay. Thus, it can say that marine is also famous in Seattle. The name of baseball team in Seattle “Mariners” and the logo of Mariners came from this fact that Seattle is famous for navy.

             Seattle is not only famous for trading or navy. One of the biggest corporations around the world like “Boeing”, “Microsoft”, “Amazon” and “Starbucks” were build in Seattle. That is because Seattle is famous for trading place and corporations in Seattle could trade their products with other foreign countries. These corporations improved and became world wise.

               Back to the story of MLB, every base ball team in MLB has their own name like “Yankees” and “Mariners” etc, and that names usually came from local specialty of their own state. When you watch MLB and found team that has interesting name, it is possible to discover the origin of team name and the State’s local specialty.

 

 

Work Cited

 

The main site of Seattle Mariners

The government cite of Seattle

 

I took information from these two sites, but I don’t know how to make citation of these two sites, so I put like this.

 

U.S.A where the MLB and base ball were created-No.2- By Masakazu Kimura

Masakazu Kimura

        This time, I would like to write my favorite baseball team New York Yankees which is in American league’s east division. I wish everyone know the team NY Yankees and if you guys don’t I will make you know. New York Yankees’ name came from Yankee, but do you know what Yankee is? Before explaining about NYY (New York Yankees), I would like to explain Yankee first. The meaning of Yankee is now the white people who are living in Northern east in United State and in other countries, they call all Americans “Yankee”. Naturally, this word came from the nick name of Dutch who were living in America. British people in America named them “Jan Kees” and eventually, it became “Yankees”.

        Back to the main part, NYY is one of the famous team around the world and richest team in MLB. Also, NYY won 27 World Series championship and 40 American league panels. World Series is basically the championship of MLB. This 27 and 40 number is the record of MLB and NYY is the team which got the title the most. Maybe most of the people know, but the best player ever in MLB “Babe Ruth” was in this team and Lou Gehrig, Yogi Berra were in NYY and was famous MLB stars. Now, Derek Sanderson Jeter is the most famous baseball player in NYY. This team has pretty long history, around 100 years. Baltimore Orioles was the first name, but this team moved to New York and changed its name to New York Highlanders. However, the owner of this team changed and on the same time, he changed the name of the team to New York Yankees. The number of fans is increasing every year and the number became more than 4 million. As I mentioned before, Yankees is rich and they got a lot of money. The reason is not only because the baseball team is in NY. Because there are many fans that supports Yankees all across the world and because they are actually paying money and supporting that team, NY obtains a lot of money and can spend that money to buy new players or upgrade their stadium or fan club.

Did you know that, there is another baseball team in NY?? That is New York Mets.

        New York Mets also have pretty long history like New York Yankees. Needless to say, Yankees is much older than Mets. First I have to apologize to Met’s fans. I’m really sorry to say, but Mets is doing horrible and they are actually weak and not doing well. Both NYY and NYM (New York Mets) are in New York and both teams have stadium in NY. However, the strength of team is totally different. Then, why? It is because of the number of fans. If someone tries to say NYY is strong because this team is in NY, he actually can’t say that. Of course, NY’s economy is very high so NYY might get more money than other team. However, if that so, Mets also get a lot of money and have to be strong. But in fact, Mets are not strong. Thus, comparing these two teams, it can say the more number of fan one team gets, the more money they will obtain.

        This is about New York Yankees and why they are strong and famous.

For people who want to watch the NYY’s play

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=poNyniQ5eCY

References

l  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=poNyniQ5eCY

l  https://www.google.co.jp/search?q=Yankees+picture&hl=ja&rlz=1T4TSHD_jaJP487JP487&prmd=imvns&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=otoGUMzSMo6TiQfSqfW6CA&ved=0CGAQsAQ&biw=1264&bih=582

l  http://newyork.yankees.mlb.com/index.jsp?c_id=nyy&sv=1

About the last Friday class By Masakazu Kimura

When I heard we are going to have Stan’s class in peace museum, I thought something bad will happen like Prof Stan will scold us again. However, when Prof. Stan showed up in that room, he was actually smiling. My tension suddenly came loose. Class started and Stan asked us “What is Academic wring and do we really have to follow certain format to write essay?” Before that lecture, my image of academic writing was hold with only certain format, the common format MLA and APA. However, Stan showed and read some books with totally different formats than MLA and APA. My image was changed. “We don’t have to follow certain formats like MLA and APA when we write academic paper”, this is what I learned in last Friday class.

U.S.A where the MLB and base ball were created-No.1- by Masakazu Kimura

Masakazu Kimura

Almost everyone in the world knows what “Baseball” is, but as a matter of fact, some people don’t know what “MLB” is. Major League Baseball (MLB) is professional baseball league in North America and one of the four major North American professional sports leagues. Four sports are Baseball (MLB), Basketball (NBA), Hockey (NHL) and American Football (NFL). There are thirty teams in MLB and only one team is in Canada, but other teams are in U.S. MLB is divided into two main leagues, American League and National League and each league has three divisions which are East, Central and West. Also, each division is consists with 4~5 teams.

        If you hear the word “MLB”, people might think MLB is the just only baseball league and baseball fan’s go there and watch the game for fun. To be honest, that is totally right. Fans go to the stadium and bet with friends which team is going to win.  That is their pastime and they are looking for it every single week. However, the game of MLB is anything but a game for baseball fans. There were a lot of important histories and MLB (baseball) affected the world in many ways like society, culture, the motivation of the citizens and ethical issues. To prove that MLB affected the world, let us just face some effect start from the change of world’s society, especially American society.

        Back in 1796 while the sport “baseball” was created in U.S, baseball became one of the most famous sports in U.S. and almost hundred years later, baseball association created new organization for baseball which is “MLB”. From year to year, MLB (baseball) become worldwide known and a lot of countries were involved to this new sport and baseball association. MLB build a stadium for baseball only in major cities, like NY and west coast. Because of that, many American fans from all states actually visit the stadium and paid money to watch the game. Fans also paid money for hotel or other thing in the city too. This really helped major cities’ economy to be more developed and the state which has stadium became rich. Not only America but other countries also adopted new sports “baseball” and the system of MLB into their country and same economic development happened in some countries. In these days, MLB and baseball association in other countries are supporting developing countries or the country that had tragedy and actually donating money.

        Since baseball was created, the number of fans increase year and year. Not only citizen, but also some companies started to support the MLB and base ball. Also, in these days, other countries’ citizen except U.S.A like me is supporting the MLB and the people who like to watch the game of MLB are getting energy from MLB baseball and our motivation goes up while we are watching the game. This is also the positive effect that MLB made.

        The biggest effect that MLB made is the ethical problems. As a matter of fact, U.S. had conflict between white and black people. Because of the different skin color, people detested and white people thought black people aren’t American and they used to be a slave, so they are not human. On the other hand, black people disliked white people so much because they treated black people like their pet. Thus, they were different baseball teams which were consisted with only white player or black player. Not only baseball. In the daily life, white and black people were completely separated. It was unbelievable thing for black baseball player and fans to join to MLB or go to the MLB stadium. However in 1947, Jack Roosevelt "Jackie" Robinson who was African American and born in U.S.A in 1919 became the first MLB baseball player who had black skin. A lot of white people complained about him, but because he had great baseball ability, everyone accepted him. His entry to MLB shocked black baseball player and after that, black player also started to join MLB and now, there are about half players are black. Because of Jackie, white and black relationship became much better and the issues were solved. In these days, baseball players from other countries like Japan, Cuba, Korea are playing in MLB. For extra information, there are more than 14 Japanese players in MLB.

        With these effects, we can say that MLB is not only american sports to watch and enjoy but also MLB affect the world in many ways as economy, culture, ethnical probelems and it also changed the citizen’s motivation. Before I wrote this essay, I just knew the basic inforation of MLB, but through this work, I also had a opportunity to know the non famous side of MLB.

        If you have comments or if you have a request for the MLB team like you want to know about this team, feel free to write or request.

Work Cited

Hill, Justin. “Robinson Affected American Society; ball player’s effort led to change

Across the country.” MLB.com. Apr 14, 2007. Web. Jun 9, 2012.

“Nihonzin sensyu ichiran.” Yahoo Sports. Jun9, 2012. Web. June 9, 2012

What I learned from comparing my map and other’s by Masakazu Kimura

At the first class of Academic English 2, Professor Stan told us to draw a map of the world with the sort time. I surmised that almost every student have ever seen the world map before and have a brief idea what is actually looks like. In my case, I had seen map many times, but I didn’t have clear idea for shapes of the lands and its locations. Also, we had only short time to conjecture and draw a map. Thus, what did I do first was that I drew the shape of Japan in the center of the paper and added circle and square for other continents. While I was satisfied with my rough map, I was also wondering why we are drawing map in English class.

When the time went up, we were told to stand up and look around other student’s world map. What I saw was a lot of different maps from mine. Some were intelligibly and specific but on the other hand, some students were making world map with only circles. Watching different maps, I discerned one idea and my wonder were solved. Then what was the idea I discern? It was the cultural and personality differences.

As I've mentioned before, I made the world map which Japan is drawn in the center, but because there are many exchange students from many countries in GS class, they put their own country as a center of the map. Also, while I drew Japan’s shape intelligibly and made it determined as much as I could, other students drew not Japan but other countries where they are came from. Two things that I really surprised were some students also put north and south poles and the International Date Line and the style of the map. I never thought about putting these minor parts such as International Date Line. Because not all students in English class came from same place, they were thought to draw the world map or think differently. Furthermore, in general, map is drawn in two dimensional, but some student drew with three dimensional and I was impressed strongly. It is easy to discover the cultural and personal differences with comparing several maps. 

After checking other students’ maps, we were told to draw the map again. With new idea from other maps, I added many things like north and south poles to my maps and made my maps more comprehensible to other people. Many students were influenced by high quality maps and almost everyone copied the idea of that map, so eventually, most of the maps became similar at the end. With this result, we can recognize human are easily influenced if there are great models.

             

According to these results, we learned people have own style to do or draw something and that own style came from their culture, environment, education and personality. Also, this experiment gave interesting facts that human are easily to get influenced by better thing. This experience wasn’t just a practice to draw a map clearly. Because I knew only one way to do things, it was good experience to know that there are a lot of ways to do things and I interpret that it is important to understand and be open mind for the different culture, education, environment and personality each person has. 

Masakazu Kimura